


Shotgun

by CrackingLamb



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Drabble, Freeform, Multi, Post-Canon, a little bit of language, and sexual shenanigans, reference to poly-amory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 09:10:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13163781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: Hancock loves the SS, but he'll never make her choose.





	Shotgun

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted to tumblr, but I thought I would share it here too so y'all don't forget about me while I take a much needed rest during the holidays.
> 
> I promise to get back to my regularly updated works after New Year's.

They say the worst view is from the outside. And I mean, yeah, I get it. It’s hard to watch someone you love with someone else. It’s hard to see them whirling, flashing and diving like a virago, like a storm wrought only of energy and light and…and every glorious thing you can think of to describe.

It’s hard to hear their voice in someone else’s ear, whispering the nothings that lovers do, telling secrets and desires in the dark.

It’s hard for me, because I know I ain’t the only one, although I am the one she comes back to most. And I try not to get jealous, I do. Because I know it’s hard for her to be on the outside like she is. She is pre-war perfect, lollipop features and curves that haven’t seen the irradiated light of day in over two hundred years. She has a cushion on her bones that no woman has today. She has a light in her eyes that sets her apart, that draws moths to her flame. It drew me, so I know.

She lived in another age, stagnant and stultified and beautiful on the surface. Ugly underneath. In this world, the opposite is true, according to her. I wouldn’t believe her except that Nick echoed the sentiment with a wry nod and a half grin.

So when I see her with others, with that tin can she keeps around because he makes her laugh at herself, with that red headed brawler who nonetheless loves her, with the sly, deceitful agent she slinks off in the night with, thinking nobody knows…when I see her with them, I wonder what they see in her. What lights make their hearts dance and bodies burn for her? What sparks set them off on a road where they are always in second place to the next mission, the next objective, the next location on a map that only she carries with her?

I know what I see. I see a woman out of her time, who nevertheless made the Commonwealth a better place. I see a woman who shed heart’s blood when she chose to destroy the thing her only child had built, burying him with the rubble. I see a woman who is tired and angry but loving and compassionate well beyond what any of us deserve. I see a woman who loves a good tumble and a better bourbon and isn’t bashful about going after either. I see a woman who sees beneath the surface to the beautiful within.

Hell, I’m no exception to that. I might even be the epitome of that. Scarred, worn out and chem fueled, that’s me. But she sees something in me too. She must, or why else would she let me touch her, let me breathe in her air, let me bask in her presence?

Now I know I ain’t special. I mean, okay yeah, in some ways I am. I’m different from those other lovers of hers. I’ll be around long after they’re gone…well, maybe tin can will still be around. Who knows how long he’ll live?

There’s a thought, me and him, polar opposites drawn to the same magnetic bright star. Forever.

I won’t make her choose. I’ve heard the others beg and plead for her not to go without them, not to leave them behind, not to go off with someone else. I’ve heard them ask her to pick one of them, always with the intent that it will be them. I don’t do that. She is her own woman, and she knows her own mind.

She must get something different from each of us. When she’s in my arms, when I have her against a wall or the fucking floor, I like to think I know what she’s getting from me. What we have is brutally honest. When she comes apart at the seams I know she’s not comparing me to _him_. She told me that once. I wonder what she’d told them about _him_. I wonder if they know that’s why she won’t ever choose.

Besides, I won’t ask because I already know the answer and it ain’t me. She would never choose to yoke her life to a man like me. Half the time I’m high and the other half wishing I was. I ain’t ashamed of it. I got demons of my own, just like Cait, just like Danse. And just like Deacon. His might even be real. And I know she’s faced all of our demons to get where she is. She’s faced her own too.

The Commonwealth ain’t a place for happy endings and tidy closure. I’ve seen the white picket fences around the battered old houses where she lived before the bombs. They’re just part of the rubble now too. At least I got something to go back to, when she’s tired of me, when we’ve run our course the way I know we will someday. Cait has nothing, Danse has nothing. Deacon…well, he has the Railroad, but there isn’t much work for them now that the Institute is gone and buried. She is the center of the universe for them, but not for me.

Aw, hell, who am I kidding? Of course she’s the center of the universe for me too. She is the North Star and I am only a ghoul with a gullet full of chems. And when she’s gone, I’ll still be that.

For now, I’ll take what I can get. I’ll follow her to the ends of the earth if she asks me. I’ll do whatever she needs to get through each day, each night. And I’ll do it happily, because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than at her side.

“Hey, Hancock,” she says, her eyes dancing and her body thrumming with anticipation of the road.

“Time to get this show on the road?” I say, like I always do. Like I always will.

“Let’s do it,” she replies, sharp and ready, almost before I can finish speaking.

“Done,” I say, and I follow her. Another day, another night, another chance to ride shotgun.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope everyone is enjoying a happy holiday season. 
> 
> Leave me a comment or a kudo if you feel inclined, feedback is the lifeblood.


End file.
